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Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London:

At yesterday's IIEF Institutional Investor Europe Conference in London, panelists discussed fair value accounting and whether it deserved its attribute, "fair".

Mark-to-market, of which fair value is the subtext, and which has been in the limelight in the last few weeks, is an accounting rule that requires pricing the value of assets based on their current market value. Since the crisis started, the value of banks' assets have spiralled down, which meant heavy losses on their balance sheets. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), in Connecticut, was heavily lobbied and finally agreed to allow more flexibility in valuing toxic assets in early April.

On 13-April-09, when the final decision about how to revise FAS 157 (Fair Value Measurements) had been reached, Espen Robak, president of Pluris Valuation Advisors LLC in New York welcomed it with open arms.

While many details remain to be worked out, the final revisions reaffirm that the measurement goal of fair value is the "exit price," which is the price that would be paid based on market conditions on the......................

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